Amy Graff – Parent to Parenthttp://blog.timesunion.com/parenting
A place for parents to talk about life's most challenging jobWed, 28 Jun 2017 14:58:52 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.540108429And the most popular baby names in America are…http://blog.timesunion.com/parenting/21077/and-the-most-popular-baby-names-in-america-are/
Fri, 06 May 2016 13:58:37 +0000http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/?p=13882See image gallery at blog.timesunion.com]

Emma and Noah are still wearing the crowns as they continue to reign as the top baby names in America. This is the third year Noah is at the top and the second for Emma.

The Social Security Administration released its list of top baby names for 2015 released today, and you’ll find the top 10 boys and girls names above.

The top five names for girls and boys in 2015 remained unchanged from the previous year. Noah was followed by Liam, Mason, Jacob and William. Emma was followed by Olivia, Sophia, Ava and Isabella. Ava and Isabella switched spots from 2014, with Ava climbing to number 4.

With reporting from the Associated Press.

]]>21077This is why photos of Obama and kids are flooding social mediahttp://blog.timesunion.com/parenting/21073/this-is-why-photos-of-obama-and-kids-are-flooding-social-media/
Mon, 22 Feb 2016 16:47:47 +0000http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/?p=13831 [See image gallery at blog.timesunion.com] A 3-year-old boy named Clark Reynolds made his way toward the front of the rope line to meet President Barack Obama at a Black History Month celebration at the White House on Feb. 18.

Obama noticed the boy, and as he placed his hand on his cheek, White House photographer Pete Souza captured the moment (first photo in the gallery above)—which is significant because, as the Washington Post points out, it happened at “the final gathering of its kind while the first black president remains in office.”

Activist and entrepreneur Mike Skolnik was touched by the image and inspired to start the hashtag #ObamaAndKids.

Skolnik’s plan to encourage others to share photographs of the president with children worked and over the weekend social media was filled with images of a Obama calming a crying baby, giving a kid a high-five, helping students in a classroom.

Skolnik explained his intent behind the hashtag in an essay on Medium:

We’ll probably never truly be able to measure the impact that President Barack Obama has had on our children. As we enter the final year of his presidency, we will cherish and hold onto the great moments of progress and accomplishment. We will celebrate not just Barack Obama as a president, but also as a husband and a father. A man who has led this country with a deep love for all of it citizens, especially the ones who have yet to understand the historical meaning of the past eight years. I want my child and all children to be able to one day fully understand just how extraordinary of a President, Barack Obama has been. I wish that one day they will understand and appreciate his compassion, his generosity and his commitment to equity for every person in this nation and the world.

Above SFGate shares some of the best images of President Obama (aka Dad-in-Chief) and kids.

BuzzFeed tipped us off to a fun trend in Japan: Parents are posting images on Twitter of their kids sleeping in unusual places with the hashtag #MyChildrenOutOfCharge (find a few examples below).

We thought this was a great opportunity to revive our collection of readers’ photos of their kids conked out in adorable and hilarious ways.

As adults we often struggle to fall asleep in our own beds, but tired toddlers can doze off almost anywhere—on the toilet, while getting a haircut, at an outdoor rock concert, and, so often, in an Ikea shopping cart.

Last week, 13-year-old Lexi tried on this formal dress at a Dillard’s in Wichita, Kansas, for an upcoming middle school dance. Her mom claims a salesclerk told her daughter to wear the dress with Spanx. (Megan Harris)

A Kansas mom has taken to Facebook to blast a salesclerk who she says told her teenage daughter to put on Spanx to fit into a dress.

Megan Harris and her 13-year-old daughter, Lexi, were enjoying a fun day shopping for formal dresses for an upcoming middle school dance at a Wichita Dillard’s last week. For some laughs, Harris suggested that Lexi try on a full-length gown that wasn’t exactly her style. When Lexi stepped out of the dressing room, her mom thought the dress looked cute and snapped a photo. But the salesclerk allegedly disagreed and said the girl should put Spanx on under the dress to help make her look thinner.

Harris told Lexi to go back and change into her clothes and then explained to the salesclerk that her daughter didn’t need slimming undergarments. The Dillard’s sales associate continue to recommend Spanx.

Harris posted a letter on Facebook on Jan. 20 addressed to the sales associate and expressing her frustration over her daughter being body-shamed. She wrote:

I wish I had told you how many girls suffer from poor self image and telling them they need something to make them perfect can be very damaging. Girls of all ages, shapes and sizes are perfect because that is how God made them. If they feel good in a dress, that is all that should matter. My daughter is tall, she swims, runs, dances and does yoga. She’s fit. She’s beautiful. She did not need you telling her that she is not perfect.

Harris went on to say that she hopes the message is shared—and indeed, her wish has come true as the post has gone viral, receiving nearly a half-million likes and being shared over 78,000 times in the past week. Media outlets ranging from People.com to Cosmopolitan.com have covered the story.

Dillard’s released a statement to Fox News in response to the event and said the company reached out to Harris and her daughter. “At Dillard’s, our mission is to help people feel good about themselves by enhancing the natural beauty found in all of us,” the statement read.

A pregnant woman and her husband hailed an Uber in Manhattan and the driver refused to pick them up.

New York City law says it’s illegal for car services to deny women in labor a ride to the hospital. But a Manhattan man says that didn’t stop an Uber driver from refusing to give a ride to him, his pregnant wife and a birthing coach in November.

David Lee, 37, told Fortune his wife (who asked to not be named) was in labor and had thrown up on the pavement when the Uber driver responded to his request for a ride to the hospital.

The driver wouldn’t allow the group in his car because he was concerned the woman might dirty its interior, and then he slapped Lee with a $13 charge for taking up his time to discuss the matter.

Lee and his wife called another Uber driver who gladly made the three-mile trip to the hospital where the woman delivered a baby boy hours later.

Lee later complained to Uber and the company refunded his $13, but he was left frustrated because he feels his wife was unfairly discriminated against and broke the law. What’s more, the company failed to admit the driver had done something wrong and they refused to give him the driver’s name, stating their policy to keep information about individual driver’s private (he later found it on the receipt).

Fortune contacted Uber about the incident and the company’s spokesperson cited its privacy policy protecting drivers and released a statement: Denying service to a passenger in labor is unacceptable: it goes against our code of conduct and the standard of service our riders rely on. We extend our deepest apologies to both riders and have taken action to respond to this complaint. We are glad that the rider’s next driver was professional and courteous.”

While the law might prohibit drivers from discriminating against riders, incidents like this occur occasionally, especially with the app-based car services because often the drivers aren’t properly trained. Last year, disabled passengers sued both Uber and Lyft, a competing ride-on-demand service, for denying to pick up passengers with service dogs and wheelchairs, Fortune reports.

]]>21070Watch a 2-year-old make sandwiches for the homeless at Glide Church in S.F.http://blog.timesunion.com/parenting/21069/watch-a-2-year-old-make-sandwiches-for-the-homeless-at-glide-church-in-s-f/
Tue, 12 Jan 2016 16:00:56 +0000http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/?p=13803

Who says a 2-year-old can’t get the job done?

At San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church on Sunday, my toddler helped make 600 sandwiches for the homeless. She spent nearly an entire hour placing thick slices of ham on pieces of bread—remarkably without throwing a single tantrum or a single slide of meat in her mother’s face.

Yes, a few mishaps occurred. She tried to take a bite out of the first sandwich she made, and she dropped a few slices of bread on the floor (“Uh oh, Mama!), but overall she was a motivated member of our assembly line.

She sure surprised her mom. I didn’t even want to take her as this was something my 12-year-old daughter and I were planning to do together and I worried the toddler would pull me away from the experience, demanding to be held and fussing because she wasn’t the center of my attention.

But we had no choice. My husband alerted me only late the night before that he wouldn’t be able to watch her.

“Really? You’re just telling me now that you’re going on a mountain bike ride with friends tomorrow morning?” I questioned him. “I can’t get a sitter. It’s almost midnight. She’s going to make it impossible for me to help make those sandwiches.”

“Just bring her dolls,” he suggested. “She’ll be fine.”

But the folks at Glide weren’t going to let my daughter sit in the corner and play with her baby dolls. Volunteer coordinator Uncle Earl dressed her in a plastic apron and hair net and stuck her in front of a giant tub of meat. He showed her how to place the meat on the bread and clapped with encouragement when she did it correctly. “You go girl! You’re a great helper!”

My daughter glowed with pride in being part of the community effort—and I realized it was time to higher my expectations for my toddler. Maybe she can start folding her own laundry?

Glide serves up to 2,400 meals per day to the San Francisco community. Some 85 volunteers help with food prep, breakfast, lunch and dinner shifts daily. The Glide site indicates “During all meals and prep shifts, the minimum age to serve is 12. During the weekends we have a bagged lunch shift where we can accommodate children ages 9 and up.” Glide does not encourage parents to bring toddlers but if someone shows up with a younger child, the meals staff has discretion to allow them to stay if it can be done safely and the underage child can be directly monitored by their parent at all times.

]]>21069Can wearing a ‘musical tampon’ while pregnant stimulate your unborn child’s brain?http://blog.timesunion.com/parenting/21068/can-wearing-a-musical-tampon-while-pregnant-stimulate-your-unborn-childs-brain/
Wed, 06 Jan 2016 19:31:16 +0000http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/?p=13789 [See image gallery at blog.timesunion.com] When I was pregnant with my first child 12 years ago, I regularly placed headphones on my stomach while I sat for hours at my work computer. My unborn child was regularly treated to a sophisticated medley of the great classical works by Bach, Beethoven and Mozart (and well, let’s be honest here, a whole lot of garage rock from The White Stripes).

I was an ambitious, soon-to-be first-time mom wanting to give my future daughter the best start in life (and good taste in music). And like many newbies to motherhood, I was motived by articles citing research that music, especially the more complicated classical compositions, stimulates a developing brain and promotes learning. But my efforts were ineffective (no wonder my daughter quit piano!) according to a new company based in Spain claiming fetuses don’t benefit from melodies played outside the belly.

To give babies a premium musical listening experience, Baby Pod produced an oval-shaped, silicon speaker that pregnant women can insert into their vaginas as they would a tampon. The device is controlled by a mobile phone app allowing soon-to-be-moms to stimulate their fetuses’ brains with their favorite songs. A pair of split head phones hang from the vagina allowing future parents to listen along.

A number of speaker products that pregnant women can strap around their bellies have been on the market for years, but Baby Pod claims fetuses don’t fully hear music conveyed outside the womb because the sounds are muffled by the abdominal wall. The company designed its product based on research from Institut Marques, a Barcelona-based fertility clinic, claiming babies pick up on the complexities of music played inside the vagina.

“The vagina is a closed space, so sound is not dispersed in the environment,” an explanation on the website reads. “In addition, there are less soft tissue layers separating the baby from the sound target, only the vaginal and uterine walls. By placing a speaker inside the vagina, we overcome the barrier formed by the abdominal wall and the baby can hear sounds with almost as much intensity and clarity as when emitted.”

This sounds like a recipe for hearing loss but Baby Pod claims the sound intensity is only 54 decibels, “similar to a conversation in a hushed tone.

Not convinced? The company says their musical pod isn’t any louder than vibrating sex toys, which doctors say women can safely insert into their vagina during pregnancy. Come to think of it, Baby Pod could be used as a fun sex toy after the baby is born.

]]>2106813 hilarious average parent problems during the holidayshttp://blog.timesunion.com/parenting/21067/13-hilarious-average-parent-problems-during-the-holidays/
Thu, 24 Dec 2015 16:41:38 +0000http://blog.sfgate.com/sfmoms/?p=13774 [See image gallery at blog.timesunion.com] Your kids knock over the Christmas tree while playing a game of freeze tag in the living room.

Your 9-year-old breaks down into a screaming fit of terror after accidentally touching the Elf on the Shelf.

And oops, there goes your favorite ornament. Your 2-year-old just decided to see what would happen if she threw it across the room.

These scenarios are unfortunate, but savvy mom blogger Ilana Wiles of Mommy Shorts feels they are also worth laughing over.

On her Instagram account aptly titled Average Parent Problems, Wiles is collecting hilarious photographs capturing those pesky situations that occur around the holidays and make you scream “Why me?” Above we share a few.

If it’s nearing happy hour and a juice box isn’t going to cut it, head to one of these family-friendly watering holes. After performing extensive market research, we’ve found some Bay Area establishments that offer good drinks for the adults and great fun for the kids! Cheers!

For Red Tricycle’s full list of family-friendly bars, including those in the East Bay, Marin County and Peninsula, visit Red Tricycle.com.